Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life & Legend (37 page)

Here Ralegh dwelt on the bugbear of Spain to his own advantage, reminding the court that the enemy was impoverished by war. The Spanish King's Jesuits, 'his Jesuites begged from door to door in Spaine'. Even if bribes and subventions were available, why should Ralegh expect to receive any money from Spain when he had nothing to give in return? Would King Philip really listen to Cobham's folly? For that matter, would Ralegh? What did they take him for? Answering these rhetorical questions, he advanced a wonderful array of medieval English peasant-traitors, associating disloyalty with low birth, and distancing himself from both. Would they have him 'A Cade? A Kett? A Jack-Straw?'
68
 Coke made it part of his battle-plan to tease out the differences between the childish Cobham and the Machiavellian Ralegh. But Ralegh was on sure ground when refuting the artificial distinction. Cobham - as he reminded the jury and as biographers have failed to remind readers ever since - was 'not such a babe' as Coke made out, having 'dispositions of his own, and passions of such violence that his best friends could never temper them'. 'How', he asked, finally, 'could I stop my Lord Cobham's mouth?'
69

By focusing on his friend, Ralegh was again highlighting the prosecution's great problem and his own principal defence: with Cobham unwilling to confirm his accusations, the Attorney was unable to call a convincing witness. Instead, the jury were treated to a statement from a sailor, resplendent in a 'blew cassock', who reported how while last in Lisbon he had been told by 'a Portugall Gentleman' that Ralegh and Cobham were about to spring some unspecified plot against the King.
70
 What do you make of that, Ralegh asked in astonishment. That your treason had wings, Coke replied. If we did not know the man better, we might suspect that the Attorney General himself nodded here to the weakness of his evidence. Again and again Ralegh exploited that weakness. Cobham's testimony was, he pointed out, the product of passing anger. Ralegh appealed to the Lords present. Familiar with the man and his ways, they all knew that Cobham,'in his choller...had accused his friends of greater matters than these, and had been sorry for it.
71
 His actions after the Main Plot had in no way been out of character.

The frailties in Cobham's evidence highlighted problems already recognized in prosecutions brought on the word of a single witness. Whether or not English law actually required at least two witnesses to press home a count of treason, the rationale behind a two-witness rule still endured. Ralegh, who knew his Old Testament, pointed out that 'the law of God liveth for ever', and that 'by the whole consent of the Scripture' conviction on the word of one witness was insufficient.'
72
 He had prepared carefully, working with the loyal Harriot on his legal case. Notes in Harriot's papers include a list of supportive passages from the Bible, insisting inter alia on two witnesses in a capital trial, glossing the arguments that Ralegh used so purposefully that day.
73

The argument was, however, not without its problems. Scriptural precedent was all very well, but as Englishmen, the judges at Winchester preferred to look at the specific limitations set out by treason legislation enacted in Parliament over the past 250 years. When statutory requirements on the number of witnesses had been repealed, or had lapsed, then common law principles prevailed. Common sense also challenged the vigour of Ralegh's case. In some circumstances one witness was manifestly sufficient. Again, though, Ralegh was prepared to fight the judges on their own ground. The least that they could do was to present their man. 'You tell me of one witnesse, let me have him'.
74
 Quoting English precedent and, for good measure, both Daniel and Deuteronomy, Ralegh asked over and again for Cobham to be put on the witness stand: 'Master Atturney,' he said, 'if you condemne me upon bare inferences, and will not bring my accuser to my face: you try me by no law but by the Spanish inquisition'.
75

Prove these practises by one witnesse, and I will confesse my selfe guilty to the King in a thousand treasons. I stand not upon the law, I defie the Law, if I have done these things I desire not to live: whether they be treasons by the law or no.
76

Here he received some unexpected support. Cecil endorsed his request. This was not the Secretary's first sympathetic intervention that day; Cecil had already agreed with Ralegh when he claimed that any evidence against him provided by George Brooke might be tainted by a personal animus, and indeed that Cobham might well have presumed to use Ralegh's name in negotiations with Spain, without his friend's consent. There was a certain courage in this, given the circumstances, though being Cecil, and being scrupulous, he had added that it was difficult to know whether Brooke's love for his brother could be outweighed by dislike of Ralegh.
77
 Again and again, though, the lawyers said no, and Cobham remained in his cell. When Coke tried to play on Ralegh's own argument, suggesting that Ralegh had carefully concealed his complicity in treason from everyone except Cobham, the prisoner finally lost his temper: he 'furiously started up, and said to him, Master Atturney, you must not thinke that all that maketh for me is policy, and all that maketh against me is plain, and God revealeth it...what indifferency is there in this my Lord Chiefe Justice?'
78
 This rare outburst of righteous anger in an otherwise very controlled performance emphasized the rather obvious point that he made.

The case for the prosecution contains several curiosities. At one point in proceedings, Ralegh was accused of reading a manuscript tract written thirty years before against the Stuart succession by the MP and lawyer Robert Snagge. He had, said Coke, obtained the book from Lord Burghley's library while searching with Robert Cecil's ready permission for 'Cosmographycall descriptions of the West-Indies'. Worse still, he had passed the work on to a discontented Cobham, deliberately encouraging that discontent. Here Coke again brought out Ralegh's reputation for dishonesty. He introduced the evidence to show Ralegh as the false friend, the betrayer of confidences, but of course this detail could and did point another way. At once, Cecil was again on his feet, defending his own decision to let Ralegh see the tract, veering to and fro in unconvincing fashion between his respect for Ralegh, his regret that 'so compleat a member in a common-wealth was fallen away', his irritation that the book had been removed without his knowledge, his defence of his father's zeal in collecting such titles (who else, he asked, should do so?), and a frank admission that his trust had only recently been eroded: 'for some infirmities of Sir Walters the bonds of his affection had been crackt'. It was an extraordinary outburst from such a man in such a position, and it hinted at panic. Yet in his anxiety Cecil was perhaps only speaking the truth; 'reserving his duty to the King his Master...hee swore by God he loved [Ralegh], and found a great conflict in himselfe'.
79

The Secretary's nervous intervention shifted the focus from the prisoner. With some of the pressure taken away for the moment, Ralegh was able simply to point out the flaws in Coke's reasoning. He rejected any in intent, arguing that it was hard indeed to tie a charge of treason to so trivial a circumstance, and suggesting that Cobham had simply picked up the book from a table, even that he had actively 'discommended' the book to his friend. In a personal aside, which reminds us about the pragmatic implications of an impending duel, Ralegh referred to a challenge that he had once received from SirAmias Preston, and his consequent efforts to put his papers in order, should the worst happen. The prisoner also referred to his former working relationship with Cecil, a nostalgic recollection of happier days. He had often dropped in on his friend when the latter had 'a searcher with him with a packet of libells', but surely Cecil would not be faulted for the fact that on such occasions he had passed one or two to Ralegh for perusal?
80
 Something is learnt in these exchanges about the Secretary's working habits. The discussion of Snagge's book now seems trivial, but it held dangers for Ralegh. He could not afford to see too many flaws in his character exposed. The underlying suggestion that men who were not privy counsellors had no business looking at subversive texts, that the act of reading was itself a token of disloyalty and sedition in these people, was pressed home with some vigour.
81

Given a final opportunity to address the jury, Ralegh played cleverly on their emotions and prejudices, reminding them of the odds stacked against him. It was worth evoking the sympathy accorded to an underdog. As lawyers, Coke and his colleagues were experienced in presenting a flawed case; between them they had a wealth of expertise and practice. Ralegh, by contrast, had never studied law before his arrival in the Tower. He was 'weake of memory and feeble as you see' - many must have smiled at this, but did he mean them to? His final point targeted the night fears of any English citizen: would the jurymen themselves be content to be judged upon suspitions and inferences'? How, indeed, would they feel were unsubscribed, withdrawn evidence brought against them to substantiate a capital charge? If such practices were to prevail in law, could any man ever again hope to be safe from arbitrary power?
82
 Here the prisoner's argument resonates down the centuries.

In the end, however, Ralegh's 'bare denyall' of the charges was insufficient.
83
 It was not Coke's words that condemned him, but rather Cobham's, and the persistent reflection that, in accusing Ralegh, Cobham accused himself. The transient nature of the accusation did not destroy the case. So far as Cecil was concerned, Cobham had refused to subscribe his confession simply 'because he thought [as a nobleman] he was priviledged by his degree'.
84
 Perhaps in this way Cecil suppressed a troublesome conscience, or perhaps there is some truth in what he said. For all the obvious flaws in Coke's prosecution he got the essential part right, preserving, defending and upholding the integrity of Cobham's confession, through thick and thin. If what Cobham had said on 20 July was true, Ralegh merited a traitor's death. It was as simple as that.

The trial therefore turned on the detailed scrutiny of Cobham's statement. Here the sense of theatre in these proceedings is particularly strong. Choosing his nionient, towards the end of the day, Ralegh produced with a flourish a letter written by Cobham, and smuggled from one prisoner to the other, which exonerated him from complicity in the Main Plot. He was, however, trumped by Coke, who immediately brandished in front of an astonished court a second statement from Cobham confirming his previous accusations. Cecil, still apparently smarting from Coke's use of the Snagge evidence, intervened yet again, reading Ralegh's evidence (for, as Ralegh noted, he knew Cobham's handwriting) and publicly rebuking Coke for trying to suppress the evidence. In all this brouhaha, the crucial nature of Cobham's 'restatement' went unremarked. For the document in Coke's hand departed significantly from the charges allegedly made on 20 July. In the statement now brought forward, Cobham maintained that Ralegh had encouraged him to negotiate with Arenberg, hoping to secure an annual pension of £1,500 in return for foreign intelligence. He added that, 'coming from Greenewich one night', Ralegh had passed on information on 'what was agreed upon betwixt the King and Low Countrymen' for transmission to Arenberg, insisting that Ralegh had been the principal cause of his own discontent. Though this is far from the extravagant sweep of treason embraced in his outburst of 20 July, the court seems to have interpreted Cobham's letter as an elaboration on that testimony, and, reasonably enough, to have focused on the fact of accusation.
85
 That was sufficient to persuade a by now bewildered jury of Ralegh's guilt, and they wasted no time in returning a unanimous verdict. The prisoner was guilty of treason.

Presiding over the trial as Lord Chief Justice, Popham duly sentenced Ralegh to the traitor's death, to be hanged, drawn and quartered. An elderly man closely involved in the enforcement of Elizabethan legislation against religious nonconformity, he could not ignore the whiff of atheism that still clung to the prisoner, exhorting Ralegh to listen to no one - not Harriot, nor any other clever fellow - who might try and persuade him that there was no God!
86
 Popham's speech was sharp, if cloaked with conventional regret. Choosing his words carefully, he labelled Ralegh as a'revenger', listing at the same time all the reasons why the prisoner had no cause to seek revenge. Ralegh had, of course, been a man of accomplishments - he had been 'fit and able to have served the king in good place' - but now his gifts only magnified his faults. In Popham's conventional vision of the world there are comforting, familiar patterns to the fall of statesmen, which Ralegh for all his talents cannot quite escape. Perhaps he had simply tried to climb too high; the Englishman in Popham, so full of schadenfreude, speaks out clearly here.
87
 A hostile poem by Thomas Rogers, dating from 1603, made the same point, if more gracefully: